


Birthday

by sklove



Series: Brighter Day [2]
Category: General Hospital (TV 1963)
Genre: F/M, Family, Family Feels, Future Fic, One Shot, Sante - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29425308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sklove/pseuds/sklove
Summary: Dante and Sam celebrate the first birthday of their youngest child, with the help of some family and friends. Futuristic fluffy one-shot. {I am shipping Sante so hard}
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" McCall/Dante Falconeri
Series: Brighter Day [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125629
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I came up with off the cuff. It's unapologetically fluffy so please know that. Thanks for reading and please drop a comment or a kudos below if you feel so inclined.

**Birthday**

“Guess what, sweetheart? Today you are one year old,” Dante crows as he dances his way across the wide green lawn with Alessia on his hip. “Today you will eat cake for the first time and people will repeatedly squeeze those cherubic cheeks of yours, and they’ll sing you a special song, even your Mommy in that terrible soprano voice of hers -”

“Hey! I heard that!” Sam laughs, swatting at his lean hip as he sails past her towards the picnic table.

Dante winks at his wife as he deposits the chubby toddler in her high chair - “and you’ll get to open a ton of presents, and everyone will tell you how much you’re loved. And you are loved, baby girl, _you are."_ In a throaty whisper, he adds, "Your mommy says you’re the very last one we’re gonna have so I better enjoy you while you’re still small. Of course, she said that after Rafaello, and after Elena too.”

He ruffles Alessia’s fine, dark hair. She looks so much like her mother with her chocolate-brown eyes, all wide and curious. They miss nothing. As the youngest in their _“yours, mine, and ours”_ family, she is probably more than a little spoiled, honestly, but she’s daddy’s girl. Dante even named her, choosing the name Alessia in honor of Sam’s late, beloved mother Alexis who helped bring Dante and Sam together years prior.

_People often asked them, “So how did you two meet?”_

_Sam would look at Dante with a twinkle in her pretty doe eyes. “Well, I met Dante when I was with someone else. Danny’s dad, actually. And Danny’s dad was best friends with Dante’s father.”_

_Cue pale faces._

_“Oh, and did I mention I once had an affair with Dante’s father?” Sam would say, trying to shock them._

_Dante would pick up the refrain. “Oh yeah, she did. Plus, Sam’s sister Kristina is also my sister, and her brother Leo is also my brother.” He’d slide an arm around her then, and kiss her cheek gently, sporting a smile full of cheesiness. “I guess you’d say we keep it in the family.”_

It was the people who didn’t run away after they’d talked up their close relations that became a part of their ever-growing circle of reference. The ones who mattered _stayed._

Dante thanked his lucky stars every day that _Sam_ had stayed. She’d wanted to pack up Danny and Scout and run screaming from Port Charles following her break up with Jason, but she hadn’t done it, and in the process, he and Sam got to know each other better; softly tumbling deeper and deeper into a love neither ever expected.

_“Don’t stop there, Dante,” Sam would elbow him in the side. They had this whole comedy routine down pat by now. “Tell ‘em about how we fell in love.”_

_“Oh, you mean after your mom stabbed me?” That line always caused quite the ruckus and Dante enjoyed the hell out of seeing his pretty wife trying to stifle hysterical giggles behind her tiny hands._

_“Well, in her defense, the needle was meant for someone else.”_

***

Dante feels Sam watching him as she bounces Aubrey Baldwin on her knee. The freckled six-month-old is at the age where she grabs for anything she can get her chubby little paws on. She’s got a chunk of Sam’s curls between her stout little fingers and is tugging on the ends harshly. Sam, bless her, pretends not to notice and instead coos at her best friend’s daughter.

_Sam and Elizabeth are friends?_ Yes, friendship happened; just another sharp curve in their storied history. No one had ever counted on them becoming close, least of all themselves, but they were thick as thieves now. Dante pitied the person who ever tried to part them.

Sam grins at Dante and he smiles back, mouthing _“Ti Amo”._ Her cheeks flush an attractive shade of pink and she blows him a tiny butterfly kiss. He mocks catching it and tucking it into his pocket. Yeah, it’s dorky alright, but they’re getting older. He figures they’ve earned the right to be a little corny and sentimental now and again.

Sam appears to be aging backward though. She’s prettier and more youthful than ever. In his mind, she will always be that twenty-something he’d cheekily offered a cannoli when they first met years ago. He'd never dreamt back then that they would end up here - _together, happy, surrounded by kids and happy chaos._ He wouldn’t change a moment of their long journey. Not even the sad, tragic, terrible parts, because they set the course that led them here. To the hour of their greatest happiness.

Alessia stares up at him uneasily as a trio of his aging aunties descends upon them. Alessia’s pinched, squeezed, and passed around like a football. Dante feels awful for her as she pouts and desperately reaches for him. He finally manages to wrestle her away from his overbearing relatives.

Dante presses Alessia gently to his chest and she tugs on the black whiskers of his beard. Sam says he needs a shave and has needed one for about ten years now, but he can’t bring himself to do much more than a little maintenance on the whiskers now and again. He likes how it looks, and how it feels. He often has to remind his wife it was this bearded face she went and fell in love with.

“Sorry, kiddo,” he nuzzles Alessia’s smooth cheek with his bristly one. “I know better than anyone how grabby Italian women can get when they see a cute baby and baby, you’re the cutest.” He kisses her cheek with a dramatic _“mwah!”_ , and she giggles. The aunts are all but forgotten.

Spotting his mother emerging from the town car with her husband in tow, Dante waves to them. Even gray and hunched, those two lovebirds have a pep in their step and a light in their eyes he hopes will never be extinguished.

Olivia immediately takes claim of Alessia. Peppering her granddaughter's round face with lipstick kisses, Olivia marvels over how big Alessia is getting and how gorgeous she looks in the floral summer dress she and Ned brought her back from their vacation in Tahiti.

Dante exchanges some good-natured ribbing with Ned and then finds himself drawn towards Sam by that electric energy they still share. Sam passes Aubrey to her mother and heads for the house.

That familiar thread of connection between them draws him into the kitchen after her. Sam grabs him by the hand and yanks him through the nearest door, leading down to the pantry.

“Hey,” he says as she pops on the overhead light. “You lookin’ to have a little fun before the party? With all these kids upstairs?” He knots his fingers in the belt loops of her jeans and tugs her close to his body.

“Dante,” she sighs.

“Hey, I'm not knockin' the idea. We can lock the door and be really quiet, and -”

_"Dante!”_

“Yes, babe?”

“I have to tell you something. I mean, I could tell you later. I _should_ tell you later, after the party, but I don’t know… It feels too important somehow.”

“What is it?” He asks, meeting her eyes. “Everything okay with you?”

Sam nods. “Yes. It’s just … I took a test this morning after I realized I had missed my period, and -”

“Sam, you’re-”

She nods. “Yes, I’m pregnant. _Again.”_

Dante stares at her.

“Dante, _say something!”_

“Sorry. I’m just surprised you are because I thought you didn’t want any more kids.”

“I certainly didn’t plan on getting knocked up again… But dammit! I get so busy sometimes I forget to take my birth control pills and you - you could slap on a rubber now and again, you know.”

“Don’t,” Sam says. “Don’t smirk and look all proud of yourself. You’re so damn cocky.”

“You like it when I’m cocky.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do. Now, c’mere.” He pulls her tight to his chest, gingerly furrows his lips in her silky hair. “Are you okay with this, honey?”

Sam nods. “I think so, but this baby… He or she has to be the very last one. I mean it this time, Dante! I am getting my tubes tied the second this kid is out of me.”

Dante chuckles. “Alright. Fair enough.”

She gazes up at him with misty eyes. “Wait about you? Are you happy about this?”

“Am I happy?” Dante echoes. “Nah… I’m _ecstatic.”_

His mouth fuses to hers, scraping lightly against the seam of her full lips. She winds her arms around his neck and clings to him. They are mid-grope when the doorknob suddenly rattles.

“Sam? Dante? Are you in there?” Molly’s voice reaches their ears. “If you are, hurry it up, okay. The children are getting restless and Dante’s grumpy uncles want to ‘get this show on the road already’.”

Sam rolls her eyes at Dante. “We’ll be right out, Mol!” She calls to her sister.

Dante and Sam stare at each other and dissolve into helpless laughter. Breathless, shiny, delirious with happiness, they kiss some more, and then, intertwining fingers, burst out of the house into the blinding afternoon sunshine.

_The future's so bright._


End file.
